Marion's Blog

As those that read my blogs regularly know, I have a bee in my bonnet about customer service. I thoroughly dislike anything that smacks of consumer abuse - be it the fact that you never get an answer from Twitter or Facebook even if you beg, you get taken for a ride by the likes of AT&T, or you contact a company via their friendly "contact us" links and simply never hear again.

My own view is very straightforward on this, I believe that in this world of techno-crazes, media that are supposedly social, and lack of face-to-face connections, customer service has become MORE important not less. Nevertheless, many companies do hide behind endless automated emails, centralised helpdesks that took an oath never to get you a direct answer and call centres that spend all their time sending your in a loop round the system until you cannot bear it any longer and hang up...

So, once in a while, I happen upon a company that has chosen a different path and decided, all by themselves, to provde real SERVICE, the forgotten word in the Customer Service label. A while ago, I was given one of those cute VIPP soap dispensers. I love that dinky chunky thing sitting on my sink so I was really sad when the spout came loose just last week. As I didn't have a list of welders to hand that can fix a minute spout like that without my soap dispenser taking on a whole new form, I decided to write to VIPP and ask their advice. My first delight came at the way they allow you to find a person in their company to direct your query too... Not a "Contact Us" general email (the inevitable info@...yes, we have one too, but will change that shortly!) but a simple tool that allows you to drill down to a person in the company, showing you not only a personal email address but also a picture of that person. Now how welcoming is that??

So I wrote my email, simply asking for advice on where to find a repair location, and before I knew it, I received a reply from the person I had addressed and not only that, but within two emails enquiring what had happened and apologising for the product failure, Katrene Krogshede had kindly shipped a brand new top/spout for me which arrived in one further day.

Now THAT is the kind of customer service that we can all use as an example. And whilst you may think it is too expensive to simply replace anything that people complain about, you are so wrong. If you think of that customer as being someone that now will likely buy more of your product AND spread the word to their friends vs. the cost of replacing one small item...you can see the ROI weighs heavily in favour of being good to your customers.

Marion